Freshman Senate Republicans Vow to Starve the Poor

The Republicans won nine seats in the U.S. Senate that used to be Democratic during the 2014 elections. That took them from 45 to 54 seats, and from minority to majority status. This newfound power enables them to go do something big, something to change lives. They are going to do just that. After deliberation, they've decided they're going to end the Food Stamps program, and starve the poor:

Senators Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.).

“Small businesses and the American people cannot afford President Obama’s countless new regulations and tax increases. There is a right way and a wrong to improve our country’s welfare system, and the President’s policies just aren’t working. We need to put poor people first and lower costs,” Senator Gardner said in a statement.

Senator Perdue stated on his campaign website that he was one of the millions of Americans who would support free market solutions to feeding the nation.

“The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is an overreaching federal program that has actually worsened the nutritional standards in this nation and increased costs. I am one of the millions of Americans who wish this program would end. To make matters worse, SNAP benefits are discouraging full-time job creation. We need to repeal the SNAP program and replace it with more affordable free market solutions,” Perdue said on his campaign page.

The Senators signed a pledge to approve any legislation in 2015 that would completely defund the $78 billion program.

The "free market," charity, the food fairy, or any other solution these clowns come up with won't feed the poor and hungry who use this program. There are lots of things to reform in the Food Stamps program, including the incentivized system for users to buy unhealthy, cheap, junk food. The fact is though, the program is not wasteful, it does not have massive fraud, and we can't leave millions of working poor people to fend for themselves in a supposedly moral and just nation. Senator Gardner's talk of "putting poor people first" is a line of garbage, a line he wouldn't even have dared to make a centerpiece of his Senate campaign in 2014. Taking the program away from the poor isn't "putting poor people first." It's starving them to death, legally.